Alva Noto ~ HYbr:ID III

Alva Noto (aka Carsten Nicolai) is a minimalist musician, audio-visual artist, and sound designer par excellence who has been producing an unremitting, sui generis body of work for nearly thirty years. Whether he’s creating soundtracks (Alejandro Iñárritu’s The Revenant being the most prominent),

UnSound Propositions: Previews of Unsound 2018 ~ Presence

In advance of PRESENCE, the 2018 edition of the renowned UNSOUND festival in Kraków, Poland, Joseph Sannicandro reflects upon this year’s theme, the history of the festival, and previews some of this year’s highlights. The very human drive for increased communication is

Rich’s Picks: Best Film Scores

The film industry honors scores based on their use in movies.  But our angle is different; we’re more interested in how scores work as albums.  This means our preferences are a bit different from others.  After a lot of viewing,

Various Artists ~ Rough Trade Shops Electronic ’11

Let’s start with the positives: there are a number of A Closer Listen-friendly artists featured on this compilation. Also, if you are wary of dipping a toe into the Electronic genre as a whole, this CD might – just –